NBA

2022-23 NBA Season Analysis

Using rvest, we scrape the data from basketball reference (bballref). 

Here, we have visualized offensive rating and defensive rating for the 2022-23 NBA regular season. The vertical and horizontal lines indicate league averages for the relevant statistics on each axis. 

After this, we estimate a linear model of the form:

wins <- lm(W ~ ORtg + DRtg + `TS%` + Pace + FTr + `3PAr` + `TS%`, data = advanced)

Upon which we obtain the following estimates:

Here, we see that as a team's offensive rating increases by one unit, wins increase by 2.1478. Additionally, as a team's defensive rating increases by one unit (higher defensive rating is worse), wins decrease by 2.4261. Both of these variables are statistically significant at the 0.001 level.

That being said, team's perform differently in the playoffs than in the regular season. The Celtics were considered the best team in the league since they had the most wins and had the best placement on our chart; however, Miami has been "over-performing" all post-season and is poised to beat them in the Eastern Conference Finals.